


In Bloom

by Anonymous



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:13:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23983603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "He had a very strange thought: even the nicest flowers rot"A spring morning. Exploration of Claude and Alois' relationship.
Relationships: Claude Faustus/Alois Trancy
Kudos: 24
Collections: Anonymous





	In Bloom

A rainy Sunday and the lilacs are in bloom. Alois tilts his head up, breathes in through his nose, tries to savor the scent of flowers in his bedroom. Claude picked them earlier in the day, before his master had even woken up. He went into their garden to pick them, polished each old vase and filled it with water before putting the various flowers in. Then, with that unnervingly light step of his, he placed them all around his highness’ bedroom, giving the boy something pleasant to wake up to. The room smells delightfully of spring, and Alois writhes around in his sheets in a languid catlike stretch, yawning and moving his hair out of his eyes.

Claude is sitting at his bedside. The first time Alois had spotted him like that, he’d nearly jumped out of his skin, startled out of his sleepy stupor immediately. This time, however, he’s very well acquainted with his demon’s habits. So he simply stirs, turns to his side and looks at him.

“When did you pick all of these?” he asks, voice small and heavy with sleep.

“Just after dawn, your highness,” Claude says. He watches Alois’ pale eyes grow wide with delight at the hyacinths on his bedside table. He sits up quickly, reaches a small hand out and touches his fingertips to the flower, tentative and delicate, as if he’d break it. The boy looks cut from soap, but like he’d crumble to dust at the slightest breeze. There’s not much Claude can do, really, to resist the urge to touch him. And a demon is not one to abstain. So without a second thought, he grabs Alois’ wrist, perhaps a bit too tight (not that his lord would ever mind), twists his hand gently and observes those pale blue veins that make his eyes light up with hunger. The boy is quick to go pliant, fond of the way his butler inspects him with all the curiosity of a wolf. It’s almost predatory, the way Claude can twist and move around his young companion, and almost concerning how Alois allows it.

If it wasn’t for him, Claude thinks, to look after the boy, who knows what would happen to him. He could fall into the hands of someone with bad intent, someone older, threatening, _someone like Claude_. But it’s not wrong of the demon to want to unravel the adolescence at his side. Because Alois trusts him, because he would drink from Alois’ palm. He watches that small hand turn, struggle to get away from his grip. He releases him after a second, and as soon as he’s freed, Alois immediately grabs his companion’s hand in his own, clinging to him. It’s always like that between them, a game of chasing each other. And he’d be a liar to deny that the boy’s neediness is a large stroke to his ego.

Alois lets out a soft whine, pulls Claude’s hand towards himself, towards his face. Taking the hint, the demon cups his boy’s cheek and strokes it gently. Alois all but melts at the gesture, presses his face against his palm, looks up at him. Claude presses his thumb gently against the plush of Alois' lower lip, watches his mouth open slightly to accept the digit. Alois sucks on his thumb noncommittally, swipes his tongue along the pad of it. There’s always something behind his pale, glassy eyes; no matter what expression he makes, Claude can always make out the visceral and bruised within him, something both wild and hurt, like a fire igniting and being snuffed out, over and over again.

When Claude first saw him, just a spider in the corner of the room, the boy’s eyes reminded him of a gutted fish, all hazy, wide but looking nowhere in particular. And in some moments, he swore he saw the boy’s consciousness float away, leaving behind just a dull stare and an empty body. Now, though, after all the tedious business with the late earl had been dealt with, he finds there’s a lot more inside his small companion. He revels in making the boy grow wide-eyed and shaky, be it by startling him or surprising him with a gesture of affection. And, oh, how easy his little lamb is to excite and frighten.

The boy lets himself be lulled into a calm for a moment, the hand on his cheek holding him steady, and he watches with a fixed gaze as Claude moves to sit on the bed, next to him, and then lean down. Alois looks up as he demon hovers over him, and all he can think of is how much bigger Claude is than him, stronger, older. Then, slowly, Claude presses their lips together, finally feeds his boy the affection he lives off of. They feed off of each other, he thinks, subsist on each other’s venom, suck each other dry. His large hand grabs the boy’s soft thigh, holds it firmly, lets himself be greedy with what’s his. And he drinks from Alois’ mouth like he would from the ripest fruit.

In that room, in his bed, surrounded by bloom and engulfed by Claude from every angle, Alois tries to drown out the doubt that threatens to crawl out of him, that repulsive desperation that his butler somehow finds pitiful enough to be endearing. Still, he reaches a hand up and grabs at Claude’s button up shirt, tries to pull him closer. The exchange is entirely nonverbal. Claude crawls over him like he’s going to eat him alive. _He will_ , but not today. Today, he laps at his lamb’s neck, presses a kiss there, and then a hungry bite, sucks an angry red mark into that gentle, thin skin. And when he moves back to kiss his lips once again, he lets his hand wrap around the boy’s throat, squeezes gently like Alois likes. Just enough to make him gasp, to remind him where he is, and where he isn’t.

Even the most beautiful flowers wilt. Fruit that is left out will be eaten from the inside. Dying, Claude notices, seems to be what frightens people the most. Oh, how bored he’s become of hearing people plea for their life. But not his companion. No, Alois is special. Alois will stand on Bambi legs, call the wolf to himself, and, despite shivering with fear, will not scream when he takes the first bite.


End file.
